New life is no life for U.S. ex-cons in Haiti

New life is no life for U.S. ex-cons in Haiti

Criminal deportation is a sore point with the impoverished Caribbean nation, where former inmates are often blamed for rising crime

By Gary Marx
Tribune foreign correspondent, May 17 2007

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/caribbean/chi-070517haiti-story,0,3132189.story?coll=sfla-news-caribbean

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti—In recent years, U.S. authorities have deported to Haiti some 2,000 criminals of Haitian descent under a controversial policy that some officials here say has helped fuel a wave of kidnappings and other violent crime.

The deportees, who have been convicted in the U.S. of crimes ranging from armed robbery to sexual abuse, often grow up in America and return to this impoverished land, instilling fear in other Haitians while facing their own hardship and discrimination.

"It's been rough," said Augustin Saint-Ville, 30, who said he was deported from the U.S. a decade ago after serving 5 1/2 years in prison for selling crack cocaine. "I want to go back. You've got to have money to be in Haiti, and there is no money."

The deportation of criminals has become a sore point between the U.S. and Haiti, which is struggling to absorb an increasing number of ex-cons at a time when the judicial system has collapsed, its prisons are overcrowded, the police force is weak and political stability is tenuous.

"It is a very sensitive issue," said Raymond Joseph, Haiti's ambassador to the U.S. "In the past, we've asked that they slow down the pace [of deportations] because some of the deportees are hardened criminals who learned their trade in America."

In December, Haitian Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis said U.S. authorities threatened to cut assistance to Haiti if it refused to accept the deportees.

U.S. diplomats in Port-au-Prince deny making such a threat and challenge the assertion that criminal deportees, known here as "DPs," imperil public security.

"I'm not sure I've seen any statistics that would bear out the allegations that deportees are responsible for the crime wave," Janet Sanderson, the U.S. ambassador to Haiti, said in an interview. "I think the crime wave in Haiti goes much deeper than that."

Role of deportees disputed

Fred Blaise, chief spokesman for the United Nations police force in Haiti, said not a single criminal deportee is among the hundreds of Haitians arrested in recent months during a major crackdown by UN troops against Haiti's powerful street gangs.

Diplomats and police say the gangs are largely responsible for the nation's 603 kidnappings in the past 16 months, along with many other serious crimes.

"People have had that big myth that there was a bunch of criminal deportees that were involved," said Blaise, who represents the police component of the UN's 8,000-strong peacekeeping mission in Haiti. "It ended up being not true."

Still, many deportees say the Haitian government's effort to demonize them has made it difficult to find jobs or achieve broader acceptance.

"Everyone is so afraid of us even though we haven't done anything here," said James Felix, 31, a Belle Glade, Fla., resident deported in January after serving 17 months in prison for cocaine possession and child neglect. "We are looked at as killers. We are public enemy No. 1."

Scorned as 'troublemakers'

Like many Haitians, businessman Georges Sassine said he would never hire a criminal deportee because he considers them "troublemakers."

"There are too many good people here," said Sassine, who owns a textile factory and is vice president of the Haitian Manufacturers Association. "Why am I going to hire a reject?"

The battle over criminal deportees dates back to 1996 when the U.S. changed immigration law to make it easier to deport aliens for crimes ranging from theft to drug possession.

Last year, U.S. authorities deported 88,662 criminal aliens, with the majority going to seven Latin American and Caribbean nations: Mexico, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, Colombia, Jamaica and Guatemala.

Politicians throughout the region blame the ex-cons for a surge in street gangs and violent crime. The Caribbean now has the world's highest homicide rate.